I’m at the capital’s airport propped up at a bar. The reason I’m at the bar is not that I’ve taken a particular liking to Kremlyovska Vodka, but because the glass-doored fridge holding the Kremlyovska is the only light-source in the departures hall of Chisinau International at 2am. Stuck in the strange position of just having arrived on one flight and waiting to be deported on another.

We’d arrived on business, but the UK arm of the firm we’re visiting hadn’t got it together to tell the Moldovans that we weren’t European Union (EU) citizens, so we were lacking that all-important invitation that you need to get through immigration control. Die groen mamba paspoort pik weer and we’re facing deportation. Although I must admit I don’t really understand why you need an invitation — Moldova’s not the sort of party I imagine many people wanting to crash.

"Welcome to Moldova!"

The personnel here (I say 'personnel' because they’re all military, not just plain old airport staff) look the part. The men wear bearskin hats. The women wear knee-high leather boots. It’s uncannily like being on a cheesy old James Bond set. Both men and women have faces that would make Comrade Stalin proud and the Moldovan Tourism Agency despair.

Nikolai, the chief of border control, is different though. He has a sense of humour. He brought us into this very recently built area of an otherwise decrepit airport. It’s a cold, dark, deserted cavern with nothing to sleep on apart from some modernist sheet-metal benches. He stretched his arms wide, beamed and pronounced as if he had just shown us into the four-star rooms at the Dedeman Grande we should be enjoying: "Welcome to Moldova!"

Nikolai has also kindly offered not to put us on the first flight out of here. He’s going to give the company we’re visiting some time to get the necessary documentation together. Let’s hope he gives them till after 11am, which is the last flight of the morning and the first to Moscow.

All's well...

In the end we managed to see more of Moldova than a deserted departures hall. The locals managed to get the necessary paperwork done and we avoided deportation. I’m glad they went to the effort because it was a great experience. The sleepless night beneath the Winston ad asking, "Do I look like I’d compromise on pleasure?" was surreal and the tourist attractions were great.

The highlight was a visit to an underground wine cellar. Not that being underground necessarily sets a wine cellar apart, but having 200km of drivable tunnels does. As does having 2.5 million bottles of wine stored at depths of up to 85m underground.

Moldovan wine is organic and it’s old. We sampled everything from '73s to '92s. A point to note is that any Moldovan wine bottled before 1991 is a product of the USSR, and that sticks one to those cheesy Bond movies. The Soviets didn’t get it all wrong. The wines easily outpaced the best Tassies I’ve ever had (OK, so I’m no connoisseur — but they were very drinkable indeed).

Shiny, happy people

The Soviets did better at wine than colour though. It is said that people who aspire to be accountants, but don’t have the verve, go off to become actuaries. It seems that the colours that aspired to be brown, but didn’t have the verve, went off to Moldova. There they joined similarly soulless greys to paint a profoundly drab picture. That, together with pervasive decay, made Chisinau a somewhat depressing environment.

In spite of the fact that Moldova tops Europe’s poor list, poverty is not wall-to-wall. There were a few Mercedes and BMWs dodging the epidemic of potholes. And bizarrely, scattered amongst dilapidation that put Hillbrow in the shade was a handful of shops that could easily have been transplanted from Regent Street (that’s just like Sandton, doll, if you’ve never been to London).

I hear there are also three McDonalds in Chisinau. We saw at least one set of the yellow arches and it was great to see some colour... the veritable golden economic light at the end of a very bleak post-Soviet tunnel. But as much as that golden M promises Money and Western affluence for the lucky few, it also promises Mad Cow Disease for the culture.

This is a pity, as the Moldovans have a local culture that is vibrant and strong. It was quite strange to hear directors of a country’s most successful IT company talk proudly and passionately about how much they enjoy folk dancing and folk music (picture Bill Gates getting excited about his most recent ho-down).

All Moldovans know how to dance and nearly all can play an instrument, but the Martian arches have taken root and will soon start pumping BSE into the cultural soil of the country. Will Valentin’s grandchildren know the folk dances? Will Radu’s grandchildren prefer the panpipes, violin and tzambal to the electric guitar? Doubtful.

National pride

On the topic of music, one of the things that struck me most in my time there was to see Russian MTV. Some of the acts were a lot more like Laurika Rauch than J-Lo and would best be described as 'vrolik', but on the other hand I also saw a Russian goth band that made Rammstein look like a Carpenters cover band. And perhaps even more disturbing was to see Eminem doing his thing. 15 years ago Russia was at war with the very best of Western principles — freedom and democracy — and now it is espousing the worst.

Through it all I felt quite a strong connection with Moldova. It is unlike South Africa in many ways, but like South Africa it has a past it is trying to leave behind and a future it is grasping for. The national pride, commitment to education and hard work were inspiring. There were lessons to learn and I’m hoping for both our sakes that, in 10 years time, South Africa will be vying fiercely with Moldova for export wine contracts and offshore IT work. And, of course, that we’ll be teaching the Moldovans what "bedonnered" means in both arenas.

» Still want to go? Find out more from Moldova Tourism.